Japan Claims Russia Breached Its Airspace

Moscow Denies Accusation; China Also Rebuts Claims From Tokyo That It Locked Radar on Japanese Naval Forces

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Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, left, at a Northern Territories Day rally in Tokyo on Thursday pledged to press Russia in front of a banner reading: 'Return the four northern islands.'
Associated Press

By

Chester Dawson in Tokyo and

Brian Spegele in Beijing

Updated Feb. 8, 2013 1:29 a.m. ET

Japan said Russian fighter jets intruded on its airspace for the first time in five years, raising tensions between the two countries at the same time that Tokyo is engaged in a similar high-stakes tangle with China.

Russia quickly denied Japan's accusation, but the simultaneous spats underscore the regional security challenges faced by a new Japanese prime minister elected on a promise to toughen his country's defense of its islands. It comes as the U.S.—Japan's chief military ally—has vowed to raise its presence in Asia, but the U.S. also faces budget cuts and is seeking to reduce its global military footprint as it winds down a decade of wars.

Japan said Russian fighter jets intruded on its airspace, raising tensions between the two countries at the same time that Tokyo is engaged in a similar territorial dispute with China. The WSJ's Chester Dawson has the story.

"Certainly, they are testing us and using the opportunity created by the Chinese diversion," said Narushige Michishita, a Northeast Asia security expert at Japan's National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies.

China also weighed in Friday, denying Tokyo's assertion that it had locked weapons-guiding radar onto Japanese naval forces, a move generally considered provocative.

Japan's Foreign Ministry said two Russian Su-27s violated airspace for just over a minute on Thursday over the island of Rishiri, near Hokkaido in the country's north, and that Japan then scrambled four F-2 fighter jets. The Japanese government launched a "severe protest" with the Russian Embassy, demanding that Moscow investigate. Its Air Self Defense Force distributed a picture that it said shows one of the Russian jets inside its airspace.

The Russian government denied it entered Japanese space. "Flights of military aircraft are…carried out in strict accordance with the international rules governing airspace and do not violate the border of other states," Defense Ministry spokesman Col. Alexander Gordeyev said Thursday.

The incident came on the day the Japanese government sets aside for an annual rally demanding the return of territories that Russia took over from Japan at the end of World War II—and as Russia was conducting scheduled military exercises around those islands.

The dispute over the islands—called the southern Kuril Islands by Russia and the Northern Territories in Japan—has kept the two countries from signing a peace agreement after World War II and continues to be a thorn in bilateral ties.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe attended an event in Tokyo Thursday and told the crowd of his "resolve to do everything I can" to negotiate a return of the four islands.

Mr. Abe is known for his hawkish defense views, and the latest report of an incursion on Japanese territory could build public support for his efforts to strengthen the military.

The alleged incursions come against the background of the new administration's efforts to expand the military's role in regional defense, including a "collective self-defense" to help repel an attack on U.S. forces deployed in Asia.

Russia's alleged intrusion comes less than two months after Japan publicly accused China of illegally entering its airspace, in mid-December, amid an escalating territorial row in the East China Sea. The standoff between Tokyo and Beijing turned more tense this week, when Japan said China's military had locked weapons-guiding radar onto Japanese naval forces twice in January.

In a statement published Friday, China's Defense Ministry said the Japanese claims "do not match the facts," saying its forces had used normal radar for routine observation. It described the statement by Japanese officials as "irresponsible," and said Tokyo had "hyped up the so-called 'China threat,' recklessly created tension and misled international public opinion. We must be vigilant against and ponder such moves by Japan."

Japan's Foreign Ministry said this week that with a statement the incident "was an extremely provocative act that risks causing an unforeseen incident."

While Japan has been focused on its territorial dispute with China, Thursday's scramble against Russia was a reminder that the northern part of the Sea of Japan facing Russia can be as tense as the East China Sea to the south.

In fact, Japan in recent years has regularly conducted more scrambles against Russian jets nearing its airspace than it has against Chinese jets.

There were 180 scrambles against Russia in the last nine months of 2012, compared with 160 against Chinese planes, according to its Defense Ministry.

"In my view, Russia is gradually getting engaged in the race over the rights to various things around this area," Gen. Shigeru Iwasaki, the top uniformed official of the Japanese Self Defense Forces, said last month. "We must watch out for China of course, but also the Korean peninsula. And we must have a solid preparation for the north as well," he added.

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Defense analysts said that if Japan's claims were correct it was likely no coincidence that Russia made its move Thursday, with Japan's military focused on China.

"They may be just testing the Japanese since they are preoccupied with the island issue" in the East China Sea, said James Hardy, a senior analyst for the Asian Pacific region with Jane's Defense Weekly, "It's been reported that the Japanese had all four of their AWACs down near the Senkakus," he said, referring to the southern island chain controlled by Japan but also claimed by China and Taiwan; they are called Diaoyu in Chinese. Japan owns four Boeing E-767 airborne warning and control system aircraft.

Beyond testing Japan's hardware, Russia may also be testing the resolve of Mr. Abe, long seen as one of Japan's more conservative politicians, who took office in December after his party won a landslide electoral victory. During the campaign, he accused the previous administration of failing to act aggressively enough to defend Japan's territories in disputes with its neighbors.

"Mr. Abe is seen as being a more assertive Japanese leader, but they may wonder what he will do when faced with two such challenges," said Mr. Michishita of the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies.

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